Dear Diary . . . day by day

Saturday, May 19th, 2001 - Being a Muse

The janitor at work is a sweet Mexican man who speaks English about as well as I speak Spanish. When Janine, my boss who works in the same room as I do, is gone, he and I usually have a fairly good conversation, letting us both practice the other's language. During one of these conversations, we discovered that we both write poetry. He told me that he'd love to translate one of his poems into English so that I could read it. I told him I'd like to read his poetry. That was a few weeks ago.
So, yesterday, he presents me with a scroll of paper. I unroll it and read it eagerly, even though Janine was there. Along the bottom of the paper is my name in three-dimensional, two-inch high lettering, with starbursts peeping through the letters. The poem is in Spanish first, then English. It is a love poem. It appears to be about me.
Oh, dear.
I thanked him and told him it was a beautiful poem. He was looking at me so eagerly! I was flushed, and I didn't know what to say. I mean, he's such a sweet guy, and I enjoy our friendship, but I'm honestly not interested in anything more than that. I should've told him that right away, but Janine was there and I'd already read the poem and . . .
Oh, well. My plan is to write a "thanks, but you're just a friend" poem and translate it into Spanish and give it to him. Part of me is afraid that getting the poem will give him the wrong idea, and that it will be cruel when he reads what I actually have to tell him. But, you know, I feel I should respond honestly and there's the language barrier and . . .
Well, I have to say I'm very flattered. Janine told me that I'm too friendly, that my sparkling, outgoig personality gives men the wrong idea. This angers me; not only do I think that she shouldn't say such things (it seems a possible precursor to the "look what she was wearing, she was asking for it" mentality), but I want to be able to talk to whomever as nicely as I like without fear of giving them the wrong idea. But, well, I've run into this before out here. I guess it's the Midwestern upbringing (be friendly to everyone, even strangers) clashing with the West Coast. It's deceptively mellow out here, and I sometimes forget about the ramifications of having so many people from so many diverse backgrounds in one place. It'd be more on guard in New York, I think. And I'd probably get less poetry written about me there, too.
This is not the only poetry that has been written for me recently. It's enough to make a girl fancy herself a muse. It must be the happiness that's shining out of me these days.

Exercise log:
Did a 10 minute abs class that convinced me I need to work on my lower back strength. 25 sweaty minutes on the precor and some shoulder and side weight lifting/workout. Feeling good about my body again, yay!
Writing log:
Working on sketching out a new story. It may or may not be spec fic. We'll see. It's definitely erotic.
I'm currently reading:
Fool's War by Sarah Zettel
On hold for now:
Henry and June by Anais Nin

My new PO Box is:
Heather Shaw
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222

Previous | Next
List of Entries for this Month | Journal Index | Current Entry
Home